SVF II.1169

Original — Latin

Adversus ea Chrysippus cum in libro περὶ προνοίας quarto dissereret: “nihil est prorsus istis”, inquit, “insubidius, qui opinantur bona esse potuisse, si non essent ibidem mala. Nam cum bona malis contraria sint, utraque necessum est opposita inter sese et quasi mutuo adversoque fulta nisu consistere; nullum adeo contrarium est sine contrario altero. Quo enim pacto iustitiae sensus esse posset, nisi essent iniuriae? aut quid aliud iustitia est quam iniustitiae privatio? quid item fortitudo intellegi posset, nisi ex ignaviae adpositione? quid continentia, nisi ex intemperantiae? — Alterum enim ex altero, sicuti Plato ait, verticibus inter se contrariis deligatum est; si tuleris unum, abstuleris utrumque.”

StoicOs Translation

Arguing against this in the fourth book On Providence, Chrysippus says: 'Nothing is more fatuous than those who suppose there could have been goods if there were not evils alongside them. For since goods are contrary to evils, both must stand opposed to each other, propped, as it were, by a mutual and opposing effort: no contrary exists without its contrary. How could there be a sense of justice unless there were injuries? What else is justice but the privation of injustice? How could courage be understood except by juxtaposition with cowardice? Or self-control except from intemperance? — For the one is bound to the other, as Plato says, by their contrary vertices: if you take away one, you will have taken away both.'

Context

Gellius reports the standard objection — if providence existed, there would be no evils — and Chrysippus' answer from On Providence book 4; the following section (SVF II.1170) extends it to diseases as by-products of a well-designed nature.

Source notes:Text verified against von Arnim, SVF II (1903), nos. 1169–1170, pp. 335–336 (OCR of the scanned edition). From On Providence book 4, per Gellius. The sequel (SVF II.1170, same chapter) adds that diseases arise 'kata parakolouthēsin' — as necessary concomitants, not as nature's principal design.

What the source actually tells us

Book title named, direct speech marked ('inquit'), and the Plato allusion (Phaedo 60b) preserved — a quotation Gellius translates but anchors closely. The concomitance-doctrine of II.1170 even preserves Chrysippus' technical Greek term kata parakolouthēsin.

Philosophical meaning

Evil is not a rival power but the shadow contraries cast: justice is intelligible only against injustice, courage against cowardice. What providence principally makes is good; the rest follows by concomitance, as fragile skulls follow from fine engineering. Chrysippus thus answers the Hymn's problem — how evil fits a Zeus-governed world — with logic rather than song.

Scholarly uncertainty

Gellius translates into Latin; the Greek original is lost, and 'as far as memory served' applies to his whole chapter. How this coexistence-argument relates to Chrysippus' other theodicies (utility of evils, punishment) is a reconstruction of modern scholarship.

Go deeper

• Read SVF I.537 — the Hymn to Zeus on evil in a governed world →
• Read SVF II.1000 — fate from the same book On Providence →